At the end of today’s Bible reading*, we read about the religious leaders questioning of Jesus’ authority: Where does it come from? (Mark 11:27-33) Jesus offers to answer their question if they will answer His own question. “Regarding John the Baptizer, where did his authority come from?” The religious leaders knew that Jesus had just…
I’m sure they meant well, but Jesus has some choice words for His Disciples in today’s Bible reading*. Parents bring their children to Jesus and the Disciples try to turn them away. Jesus responds in a way we wouldn’t expect — at least those who see Jesus as only a mild-mannered only-loving Savior. Mark says…
A few days ago, I mentioned that demonic encounters in the Bible are relatively undramatic. And then in today’s Bible reading*, we see a very dramatic demonic manifestation with a boy who is thrown to the ground, his mouth foams, he grinds his teeth, and becomes rigid. When Jesus casts out the demon, it cries…
Reading through Mark 6 (today’s Bible reading*) one word struck my mind: authority. In the beginning paragraph, we see Jesus’ townspeople only seeing Jesus as “Joseph and Mary’s son”. They didn’t see Him for Who He was, so they didn’t recognize the authority He had. Neither had the people recognized the authority of the Old…
In today’s Bible reading*, Jesus encounters a man who has been demonized by a legion of demons. The demons manifested in ways we would describe mental illness today such as self-mutilation and paranoid schizophrenia. Mental illness is real. It is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain and it can be debilitating. In many…
Peter addresses his persecuted, exiled readers (1 Peter 2:11) in today’s Bible reading* and tells his readers to submit to every human authority. Some time ago I commented on the historical context around the middle of the First Century. I mentioned Nero was the Roman Emperor at the time. Under Nero’s reign, Christians were persecuted far beyond…
